Where to Find the Web's Forensic Accountants

Two Websites, one of which also runs an ETF, are designed to highlight companies' hidden accounting strengths and weaknesses.

Every corporate Website, quarterly financial report, and earnings call is packed with numbers and ratios, industry terms of art, acronyms—even, it sometimes seems, the CEO's hat size. Unfortunately, the many marginal pieces of data frequently obscure the gem or two of truly valuable information. Often, the people whose job it is to track the company—insiders, institutional investors, and Wall Street analysts—are the first to divine the real drivers of corporate growth. Two outfits, however, claim they are about to bring this...